Hold your noses, for now we shall step back in time nigh on nine-hundred years and join Mister Tanner and his boy as they return from Mister Skinner's yard with a cart heaped high with fresh-flayed cowhides, splashing their merry way through the pismire to their own yard along the Great Cockey; perhaps in Jarrold's 'Mac' make-over salon or where Patisserie Valerie now dispenses expensive cakes or further up Haymarket under Pret a Manger's kitchen (I do enjoy wandering around Norwich and London, knowing what went on at various locations beneath my feet in the good old days).
Mister Skinner had left all the bits that couldn't be sold as meat still attached to the hides, so first up, Mister Tanner set his boy to trimming off horns, hooves and the unusable portions of the hide from the belly, head, legs, udders and raggedy edges. Then a good wash in the Great Cockey to get rid of the worst of the blood, dirt and dung.
The horns … ox, cattle, ram and goat, were sold on to horners, who used the outer layers for making such things as combs and small boxes, so for a moment we shall wander away from Mister Tanner's yard and follow Mister Horner with his bag of freshly cut horns to his workshop, also on the Cockey stream.
To give some impression of the conditions around the pits and sheds of the tanneries, the photo above is the preserved surface of a road in part of the Castle Fee dating from this time. Those are ox and horse hoof-prints squished into the mud.
When he reached his yard, Mister Horner's first job would be to remove the soft core of the horns (technically known as spongy, brown yucky stuff). Mediæval horners found that the best method for preparing horn in bulk was to soak the horns in tubs of water for a few months.
This smells BAD. Once the blood and mush has rotted and reeked, Mister Horner would use a wooden scraper to remove as much of the mess from inside the horn as he could.
I have consulted some modern crafters who work with horn and they describe the process as "really disgusting" and "nasty" and they admit that the modern craft method is to go to Pets-R-Us and get a plastic box of live mealworms, wrap them and the horn in an old pair of tights and leave them for a week or so. It still stinks but it saves months … and of course it makes for happy pet mealworms.
The next step is to clean away the rotten membrane from the outside of the horn and then to scour the inside. This was achieved by putting some gravel into the stinky horn once the worst of the soft core was removed and then shaking it like maracas. You worked with finer and finer gravel until the last shakes were done using sand.
Trim off the upper lip to give a thicker edge, less prone to splitting and you have a drinking horn (yay)!
These were a rich man's item and out of the reach of the common folk who used wooden bowls. If you're offered a drink from a horn at a cosplay "Mediæval Banquet" (such as will be held in the restored Great Hall at Norwich Castle in a couple of years' time) you'll know just what you're putting to your lips.
For most purposes, however, the cleaned horns were boiled for a few hours to soften them and then cut. The tips and trimmings Mister Horner would sell to Mister Fletcher for making arrow nocks. The horn was then pressed between two boards and, once it had dried flat, could be cut into shapes to make combs or boxes or simply left flat and used as lamp glass. Horn was the plastic of its day/ Perhaps a return to the stinky old ways would help save the planet.
Sources:
East Anglian Archæology Vol. 132: Norwich Castle: Excavations and Historical Survey: 1978-1988: Part 1: Anglo-Saxon to c.1345: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2009
The Norman Connections - Castle: Part 1: Norwich Castle: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2010
Mediæval Norwich: ed: Carole Rawcliffe & Richard Wilson: 2004
Eastern Daily Press website: "13th century cat and goat hide shop excavated."
A Brief History of Arrowmaking: Veronica-Mae Soar; Clerk to the Craft Guild of Traditional Bowyers and Fletchers: The Worshipful Company of Fletchers: online resource
East Anglian Archæology Vol. 112: Dragon Hall, King Street, Norwich: Excavation and Survey of a Late Mediæval Merchant's Trading Complex: Norfolk and Norwich Heritage Trust
East Anglian Archæology Vol 28: Excavations Within the North-East Bailey of Norwich Castle: 1979
Francis Blomefield: An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 3: The History of the City and County of Norwich: 1753 to 1775
The Oxford History of England: 1087-1216: From Domesday to Magna Carta: Austin L. Poole (ed): 1951
The Pipe Roll Society: Archive Editions (various): online resource
3 comments:
These dives (see what I did there) into history send me down the rabbit hole, sweetpea, looking for what are we doing now with...! Today I focused on horns and their current uses. Who knew? xox
Your opening paragraph is just great. Makes me wonder if Jarrold and Valerie know the truth about where they stand.
So this mediæval banquet at Norwich castle in a couple of years...will you be there?
Savannah, I love the folk who keep up mediæval crafts. Bring back horn instead of plastic! My mate Mikey is a competition archer who dabbles in mediæval reenactments and he makes his own arrows. He helped me in the Let's Make an Arrow chapter that's coming up later. He cheats, though, and uses double sided carpet tape to fletch with. Ha! xoxo
I'll be there, Petrea, but drinking my mead from a wooden bowl! The shops in Norwich take a kind of pride in knowing the history of their sites and there are plenty of signs indicating what went on in ancient days. My barber's shop is the site of an old sedan chair stand dating to pre-Tudor times.
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